


Fairest of Them All

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Aging, F/M, Fairest of Them All, Family, Gen, Growing Old Together, Humor, Love, Romance, Stages of Life, gray hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 20:18:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13643700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Jon goes gray and becomes the fairest of them all.





	Fairest of Them All

Fairest of Them All

Jon was glowering into the silver-and-sapphire studded mirror that hung from their bedchamber wall, the focus of his fury a single strand of storm-gray hair he was fretting at with his fingers as if he could pluck out the evidence of fleeting time. His reflection scowled back at him, and Thayet, watching her husband peck at himself like a peacock, thought that he might have spent more of their marriage staring into that mirror than she had. 

Giving a sickle smile at the vanity of the man she had fallen in love with so many years and children ago, Thayet tucked her chin into the curve where his still strong shoulders met his throat—after so long a marriage, they fit together more comfortably than a bow and arrow—and whispered into the soft skin of his neck, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” 

“If this is a gray hair”—Jon still seemed to be in denial that the hair he was tugging at so desperately was truly gray—“then I’m the fairest of them all.” 

“Of course it’s a gray hair.” Thayet tickled his neck with her teasing lips. Thinking of the tufts that filled her brush every time she slid it through her black hair—the color of loss, mourning, and death—these days, she added, “It could be worse. Your hairline could be receding, my vain darling.” 

“Is it that noticeable I’m going gray?” Jon’s fingers started combing through Thayet’s hair instead, and she was grateful that none if it came loose into his hand. 

“It’s noticeable.” Thayet wasn’t going to lie about the sharp-eyed courtiers observing and gossiping about every sign of age advancing across their monarchs’ features. Among the nobility, each crow’s foot, laugh line, snow-white hair, and fading hairline was dissected in vicious detail. “It doesn’t become obvious unless you pull and glare at it, so stop screwing up your forehead. You’ll give yourself wrinkles, and not the nice kind. The kind irritable old people get from yelling at children too much.” 

“Speaking of children, maybe one of our sons would give me some of their hair, and I could glue it in to cover the gray.” Jon kissed her forehead, which there seemed to be ever more of as her hair retreated from her face. 

“Some people are able to appear more stately once they’ve gone gray.” Thayet reached up to stroke his gray hair in the greatest, gentlest assurance she could offer that she still saw him as the handsome king who had stolen her heart when she took refuge in Tortall. She wanted to tell him that she loved him more now than when she had taken him as her husband before gods and mortals but was afraid that the words would sound wrong even in her own ears, so instead she went on, crisp as an autumn kiss, “With glued hair, you’d never appear stately.” 

“Stately is the watchword, my dearest.” Jon’s eyes were still the stars that made Thayet’s life sparkle. “I shall endeavor to see my changing hair not as a feeble gray but a majestic silver. Silver and blue are the Conte colors, after all.” 

This was such nonsense that Thayet decided not to dignify it with a response even if she was relieved that he had progressed from the denial and anger stages of grieving his hair to the wry humor one. Maybe after the wry humor would come a calm acceptance of the tide of time that was carrying them swiftly along, because as she and Jon were discovering as they aged side-by-side, the only thing worse than growing old was dying young.


End file.
